ENG-1952 — Page 62

HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT, 1952

to lay the position directly before them. The result was an immediate and unanimous decision to accept the new conditions on which the workers up till then had been kept in complete ignorance.

It will be appreciated that the use of such methods cannot fail to have a most damaging effect on employer/ worker relations generally. Fortunately they bear within themselves the seeds of their own destruction and it became increasingly evident as the year progressed that a considerable proportion of the workers was becoming thoroughly disgusted with the callous indifference shown by their leaders towards their real interests. Reference has already been made to the continued formation of break-away unions, most of which were set up with the avowed intention of devoting themselves solely to the safeguarding and improvement of their members' economic and social conditions. It may be that the warning light of these defections had some influence on general policy, though it is probable that the main influence came from factors not directly connected with labour problems but, at any rate, the latter half of the year witnessed an almost complete cessation of the type of dispute described above. There is, of course, a danger that the reaction from the unsuccessful violence of the ideological campaign may be a relapse into acquiescent apathy by the bulk of the workers, but there is so much that needs to be done and so much that honest unionism could do that it is hard to believe that this, if indeed it exists, will endure.

Collective Agreements

During the year agreements which had been work- ing satisfactorily in the fishing industry and rattan trade were renewed for a further period of one year. A new agreement was made between the management and

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